Read on Twitter
#AcademicTwitter–As you build online classes provide accessible course materials or links to access tools. If you are teaching synchronous zooms, which has no auto-caption feature, direct folks to tools like https://webcaptioner.com/ for real-time captions and transcript downloads.
Other free caption transcription tools like http://otter.ai are useful #disability accessibility tools too, but there's a ceiling on free use. You might investigate, too, apps like Clipomatic and Mixcaptions for any phone-generated videos.
LMS systems like VoiceThread, Kaltura, or Knowmia have inbuilt caption features. But you should also be wary of using computer-generated captions as they will not be as successful for academic terminology, grammar, sentence structure, and regional dialects.
If you are generating your own captions, there are specific guidelines and best practices for captioning content. https://digital.gov/2014/06/30/508-accessible-videos-how-to-caption-videos/
Captions should be a the bottom of the screen and below the image, not interfering with any on-screen image or text; synchronized to video content, and more than 9 point type, on a background that contrasts enough to allow the text to be readable.
Remember: captions are NOT power points. Limit your captions to two lines of text. If you're speaking so quickly this seems impossible, consider that your hearing students may be receiving the information too quickly to process too.
If you are working with low-vision/blind students, use files that are accessible to screen-reader software and spend time investing in ALT text image descriptions. Stanford has a useful online "Best Practices" guide for building image descriptions: https://rb.gy/mzj0if
Giving image descriptions in your lectures also models close reading practices to students–especially if you are in a media-heavy discipline. Ask students to generate image descriptions, too: you'll quickly learn what they prioritize or think is "important" about a given text.
If creating accessible content is new to you, it's okay to feel overwhelmed! But acknowledge that students who rely on accessible content will feel far more welcome in your classroom because you have made efforts to remove potential barriers.
You've also helped de-escalate pressure on your university's overtaxed accommodations office. A good primer to begin working with is the https://www.accessiblesyllabus.com/ .
Prioritizing accessibility in your online and F2F spaces is more than legal compliance: it demonstrates how community-building and knowledge-sharing are coeval to an ethic of care that sits at the heart of teaching. Accessibility practices negate pernicious gate-keeping.
You will likely discover that all of your students engage with your accessibility content: it underscores connections through parallel coding, serves as study tools, and models intellectual generosity in the classroom.
Following up to mention that I use these tools primarily for asynchronous classes. As a hearing aid user, I generate asynchronous content more than I host "live" online classes. If you have live classes with d/Deaf students, please use uni resources like CART and/or interpreters.
